My latest violin repair.

[Dick Hutchings]

I have an old Nippon fiddle that needs a lot of work. It had taken a good whack at some point in it's life and was repaired by a monkey. The back had a couple of areas that needed re gluing but it was so poorly aligned that I had to remove the entire thing to get it right. The top had a section of the upper bout that was broken and glued way out of alignment with gobs of glue still on the top.

Along comes monkey number 2. Me. I tried to scrape the glue off and ended up damaging the finish a little. So now I've got the back off and after doing a trial clamping I will be able to get the back on in proper alignment with no trouble. I took the broken piece on the top off and reattached it and it's 100 times better now but still not perfectly flush but very close. I'm not sure if I should take it apart and try again or try to flatten it. I need to fix the finish anyway.

My repair

[Chet Bishop]

Good work, Dick. It is all good experience, no matter what.

[Dick Hutchings]

Thanks Chet. I expect to get back to work on this next week. Right now I'm dog and house sitting for my daughter while she's getting paid to go to Disneyland. Unbelievable.